Plenty of guided tours are offered when you travel to Hawaii. We picked a snorkel outing to Molokini Crater. Pull on your swimsuits and come along!
If you travel to Hawaii, I’d strongly suggest signing up for the guided snorkel trip to Molokini Crater.
For first-timers, a guided snorkel outing supplies instruction and gear, and it gives you the chance to snorkel in deeper water.
Before we landed in Hawaii, several people told us to book a snorkel adventure with the Pacific Whale Foundation. So that’s exactly what we did.
The company runs all sorts of trips, and we chose the Molokini Wild Side Eco-Adventure Snorkel. Instead of being one of 150 people packed onto a boat, only 35 of us went out at a time. We giggled a little when we first laid eyes on the boat. The brochures had led us to expect a sort of “luxury vessel.” It was very nice, but not exactly plush. The “on-board shower” they advertised turned out to be a garden hose!
We left bright and early at 7:30 am, and within 15 minutes we spotted our first whale. Taking pictures of them is rather tricky, I’ve found…
…but oh, it’s incredible to watch them so close by.
Our snorkel guides shared great information and history about the area, and they were the ones who explained the whole “vog” in the sky to us. The upside of having vog while we were there was that there was very little wind, which meant a smoother, less rocky boat ride.
We motored out for a while until we reached Molokini Crater.
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After a short lesson on snorkelling, we were set loose to explore. It was amazing! We passed on renting the $35 underwater camera, so here are some of the things we saw, thanks to Google Images:
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After about an hour in the water, we all climbed back into the boat and headed to La Perouse Bay. There we got to swim with the turtles! It was wonderful to watch them glide so effortlessly through the water.
The water there is much, much warmer than the ocean we live beside, but after about half an hour in it the second time, I found myself gritting my teeth against shivering. I headed back to the boat a little early, but Irwin stayed out until the very end. (He’s one of the snorkelers in the picture.) While I was warming up on the boat, he was swimming with a turtle that came so close he could have easily reached out and touched it. {But he didn’t. That’s a big no-no!}
The photo above also gives an idea of what the vog looked like in the sky.
An early-morning snorkel trip leaves plenty of time to explore Maui in the evening.
Since we started so early in the day, we still had a good part of the afternoon and evening to fill. We decided to drive north from our Papakea Resort home and check out some of the beaches up that way.
We absolutely loved what we discovered!
Kapalua Bay was breathtakingly beautiful.
As we strolled along, we noticed a man in fancy dress and a few people gathered on the beach…
He was playing his ukulele and singing for them, and blowing the conch shell hanging at his side.
Farther along the path, we met a woman sitting with her granddaughter. The man I had just photographed was her husband, leading a wedding vow renewal ceremony. We had a lovely chat, and later I was thrilled to find an artist’s painting of that beach titled “Wedding Chapel Beach.”
We kept wandering, following the “beach access” signs, and caught a glimpse of Napili Bay.
Beautiful. Oh, so beautiful.
A little farther up the road, we found a gorgeous bay where the water crashed against a rock. (Perhaps it’s Lipoa Point?) Irwin got some great shots of the waves crashing:
After a wonderfully peaceful evening of beach wandering, we made sure to fill up our little rental car with gas before heading back to the resort.
Tomorrow morning was going to come early. We were off to the airport for a 7:30 am flight to Oahu, and we couldn’t be late!
